


We Were Fools

by aastarlightt



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Depression, Drug Use, F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Firsts, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Requited Love, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, jily, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:41:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28516584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aastarlightt/pseuds/aastarlightt
Summary: Seven years at Hogwarts and eighteen years that followed after that from Sirius’ POV.Childhood with abusive parents, falling in love with a best friend, adulthood in the 80s and being treated as a villain for the rest of one’s life. How can a person live like that?
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black & James Potter, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	1. 1st year: Changes

Sirius was cold. His hands a little sweaty, toes a bit numb. He threw back the green and black striped covers of his bed and placed both feet on the dark wooden floor. He had dreamt of ghosts, some scary looking people in worn grey clothes and scratches all over their bodies. Some of the wounds were bleeding, red liquid pouring out of the cuts and onto the ground, leaving pools of blood. Sirius shook his head and stood up, leaving his bedroom.

The heavy blinds in the hallway were wide open and warm sunlight poured in and painted the richly coloured wallpaper with beams of light. Sun managed to change the appearance of the whole house, and Sirius could think about some other family living here. Other children leading happy lives, playing together, parents being okay with them listening to muggle music. No torture, no violence, just joy about the ordinary. That wasn’t his life. Maybe someday, if he will be able to show to his parents that he was capable of something great, if he was able to be strong.

Sirius passed his brother’s room’s door, the dark wood looked freshly painted and bright. Regulus was probably still asleep, because both of them sat up late last night, while the youngest brother flipped through a few of Sirius’ new books he got the day before. Regulus had been excited about his brother going to Hogwarts that year, maybe a bit envious even, because he had wanted to learn magic himself. He had shown signs of it earlier than Sirius, the Black family’s eldest son being an early bloomer in the magic field, making a cup of soup he didn’t want to eat disappear at only two years old.

His mother was up. Sirius heard something being shouted out on the floor below. Wouldn’t be the first time Kreacher was being told how useless he was, although the dinner last night had been fine. He didn’t want to meet his mother, not yet anyway. Sirius walked to the big green tiled bathroom instead. He washed his hands with warm water and then his face. The numbness of his toes had stopped because of the heated tiles beneath his feet. He looked at his hands, still under the stream of warm water. They looked pale and small. His knuckles pinker than the rest of his skin.

Sirius looked in the silver adorned mirror. Sharp cheekbones, full lips, black shoulder length hair. It all looked nice together, he thought so even with his mother’s constant reminders of how his looks were not a good representation of the noble Black family. She said he was too skinny, too short, even though he was a normal height for an eleven-year-old. He was glad she hadn’t ever said anything bad about his hair. The black locks were his pride, but even that could be damaged when his own mother criticised it.

He looked at the green colour that covered every surface that wasn’t metal, those instead being silver. Slytherin colours. Every Black for a really long time has been in the Slytherin house. Being sorted there was mandatory for every Black, without exceptions. Other houses would surely be very honoured to have the family heir under their flags, but that was out of question, because surely Sirius would get sorted into Slytherin. He was admittedly a little different than his parents, in terms of his character and interests, but still the arrogance and grace, pride and cunningness, would be the leading characteristics in determining that he wore robes embellished in green and silver and not any other colour combination that would attract only trouble.

* * *

The black haired boy stepped on the train. It was the first of September and he had said goodbye to Regulus and his parents on the platform, getting out of their line of attention and simply walking away fast with one last pat on Reggie’s head. Now he was standing before a compartment where there were already three people inside. There were free compartments near this one, but he decided that it was better to get to know someone, as he wasn’t exactly acquainted with many students at Hogwarts that were his age.

He pushed open the door and three faces looked up at him. One of the boys, the one with mousy brown hair looked down, where a big book was perched on his lap. Sirius recognised it to be _A History of Magic_ , that he had already read a week before, right after getting his new textbooks.

“Hello,” he said to the two that were still looking at him, “I’m Sirius Black. First years?”

A boy with dishevelled black hair stood up smiling. He held out a hand and Sirius shook it firmly, “Yes. James Potter.” He inclined his head to the side and nodded: “This is Peter. And Remus. We met a couple of minutes ago.”

“P-Peter Pettigrew. Nice… mm… nice to meet you!” the sandy haired boy mumbled under his nose and shook Sirius’ hand. Peter’s own hand was a bit clammy to the touch, but Sirius ignored it and turned his attention to the boy sitting next to the window beside Peter.

As if he’d known someone was looking at him, Remus glanced up and met Sirius’ stare. The boy nodded: “Remus Lupin,” and went back to giving all of his attention to the text. Sirius thought that Remus was either really smart or really stupid, if he wanted to read instead of getting to know people, who might later turn out to be his housemates.

“Know which house you’ll be in?” James asked sitting down, Sirius taking the place next to him.

“Every Black has been in Slytherin for centuries. If I’m not, consider me a goner,” Sirius said this in a tone that made it seem like the end of the world would be much closer, if he didn’t get in the right house that evening.

James shook his head: “I’ll be in Gryffindor, pretty sure I am.” He said it as a matter of fact and, even if the sentence seemed cocky, he didn’t sound arrogant at all.

Peter shifted a bit in his seat. Sirius took notice and grinned: “What? Scared?” He chuckled, but the smaller boy studied his hands nervously.

“No! I’m not sure which house I’ll be in, that’s all.”

“What about you?” Sirius tried to get the third boy’s attention again. Remus didn’t look up, just shrugged.

“Probably gonna be in Ravenclaw, my dad was.”

“Might not be. Parents’ houses don’t determine that you’ll be in the same one as them,” James suggested.

“Then he better be scared for his life, uh?” Remus nodded in Sirius’ direction and smiled a bit.

Sirius laughed. He had been right thinking the boy wasn’t all that dry. Peter shrunk further into his seat at Remus’ words, because he somehow thought it to be addressed to him as well.

* * *

It was dark outside the windows of the carriage. Spooky forests had flown by, but now the scenery was slowing down and Sirius was beyond excited. Almost a whole year without parents, without their dull meals at the large table in the dining hall, without quiet attempts to read muggle journals in his bed at night. Although, he would miss the last one. And Reggie.

The train stopped at last. All three boys had put on the school robes some time before and were all in different degrees of stress now. James was the first one out of the compartment door and Sirius was quick not to hinder.

“Leave yer trunks on da train! They’ll wait for ya in yer rooms,” shouted a voice somewhere outside. Sirius couldn’t not notice the weird accent, and as he jumped out of the train, almost knocking James over, he noticed person the voice had come from. He would surely be considered a giant by any means, as tall as two grown man standing on each other’s head, and half as wide. At least that’s what it looked like to the small boy.

“That’s Hagrid,” James said in Sirius’ ear, when all of the first years started walking behind the big man down a dark path lit by lanterns on either side of it that floated in mid-air. “My dad told me about him. Said not to be afraid, he’s good.” James said it in a reassuring voice, as though Sirius might be afraid of the giant. He was not, only mildly interested in his origins, if anything.

All of the eleven-year-olds followed Hagrid and soon the path opened up to a great lake, where a dozen of little wooden boats floated along the sandy coast.

“In groups of four, please! No more!” Hagrid said in a voice that resembled thunder and everyone was quick to follow the orders. Even if James had said that the big man was ‘good’, there seemed to be an aura around him that suggested no one to do the opposite of what he said. Maybe that was just in Sirius’ head, but no, looking to the next person, he noticed it to be a light haired girl with chubby cheeks, Sirius understood that she also was quite determined to do no wrong.

He got in the boat first, then gave a hand to James, who followed him in. Peter was next, he clumsily got in, then offered a hand to Remus, but the latter sceptically regarded how wobbly looked the boy, who offered him help, and got in himself without any trouble.

The boat started gliding on the water that looked as though it was a massive mirror. As they moved out of the cover of the tall dark trees, a castle rose against the blue-black sky. They were finally at Hogwarts.

Sirius smiled to himself, but felt his hands become sweaty in the fresh early autumn air. What if James had been right? What would happen if he didn’t get sorted into Slytherin and became a Hufflepuff instead? His family would disown him on the spot. Or even worse, if he got sorted into Gryffindor… with James Potter. His father would be far from happy about that. Orion Black wasn’t fond of the Potters, but then again, no one in his family really was.

He scolded himself for thinking about that. Surely he would get sorted in the right house, even if, and he didn’t really want to admit it, he did want to be in the same house as James. The boys had had an engaging conversation about quidditch on the train and he had grown to like Potter. He reminded him of Regulus, although, as he could already tell, the boys had as much in common as a toad and an armchair. Regulus was quiet, reserved, even at the age of ten, but the reason for that might possibly be his upbringing, he watched as Sirius took punishments from Walburga, stood by his side, but didn’t dare stand up to his mother. Sirius was glad about that. He didn’t want his younger brother to experience anything bad regarding their parents on his own skin.

When the lot of them walked through a long corridor inside the castle, Sirius’ anxiety was kicking in harder than he had expected. His head felt a bit dizzy and the walls looked like they were behind a curtain of water. The boy, of course, hadn’t noticed that at least half of the first years were in a similar state. The children from muggle families were looking around open-mouthed, as if they hadn’t seen walls of an old building before.

All of them were led into the Great Hall by a tall witch with a pointed maroon hat, her dark robes swishing behind as she walked swiftly and stopped at a space between what looked like the teacher’s table and the rest of the hall, where all the other students were already sitting.

She had introduced herself as Professor McGonagall, head of the Gryffindor house, and now she stood beside a stool, where a very old looking hat was perched on top. “I will call your name, you will sit here and I will then place The Sorting Hat on your head. It will determine your house, which you will have to consider a family in the next seven years here at Hogwarts.”

Professor McGonagall called the first name and so it began. The first student to go up was a brown-haired girl with bright pink ribbons in two braids that swished on her back as she went and sat down on the little stool. The Hat took a few seconds and exclaimed: “Hufflepuff!”

Sirius was up next, he put on a determined face and crossed the few meters of floor space between him and The Hat. He sat down, legs just barely reaching the floor and the last thing he saw before the big Sorting Hat was placed over his eyes, was his cousin’s, Bellatrix Lestrange’s, smug smile.

“Hmm… A Black,” The Hat said in his ear. “Another Slytherin, eh?!” Sirius was so glad it had said so that he almost missed the next few words: “Let us change it up a bit, will you? You’ll do well in Slytherin, yes, but being a Gryffindor will surely let you go beyond the ordinary. We shall expect great things from you, Mr. Black.”

He didn’t hear The Sorting Hat shout “GRYFFINDOR!”, nor did he feel his hands shake or the colour drain from his face. All he could do was stare at the anger in his cousin’s face. Narcissa, who was a couple of years younger than Bellatrix, was sitting somewhere close by, he was sure, but he couldn’t think clearly enough to look for her face among the crowd.

Sirius made his way to the Gryffindor table, while Professor McGonagall called out the next person on the list, breaking the silence that had overtaken The Great Hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of the chapter titles are titles of songs that I like. I'm probably going to make a playlist at some point, but for now you can guess in the comments, which song with that title is the song I had in mind. :)


	2. 1st year: Boys Don't Cry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mentions of child abuse. Also there are things towards the end of the chapter Sirius is thinking about that may trigger some (false image of gender norms).

Sirius woke up with a start. It was very dark. He remembered that at about eleven in the evening last night he had climbed in his bed and drawn closed the heavy red and gold curtains. Peeking outside, he looked at his pocket watch that stood on the bedside table. It was four o’clock in the morning. The window next to James’ bed looked out to the dark night sky.

How was it possible that he, Sirius Black, had been sorted into the wrong house? It needed to be an easy decision for The Hat to make. Black family equalled Slytherin. Everyone knew that. Everyone expected that.

He put his head heavily against the pillow and pressed the back of his hand against his forehead. Tomorrow was probably going to be hell. He managed not to run into Bellatrix and Narcissa the night before in The Great Hall, but the next day he might not be that lucky. They would surely bring the news to his parents and all their other relatives. Sirius Black – the black sheep of the Black family. What a great title to have indeed.

He rolled on his side. Then back again on his back. Nothing was comfortable enough. He sighed. There was a groan from the bed next to his. Sirius pulled the curtain back and looked out into the room. Remus was sitting on his own bed, legs clad in pyjama pants and feet bare. He was looking at Sirius with an irritated expression. “Can’t sleep either I see,” he mumbled and got up stalking to the bathroom. Sirius wasn’t sure what caused distress for the other boy, but his problem couldn’t be much worse than Sirius’. Were there worse things that eleven-year-old boys had to deal with than their own family disowning them? He didn’t think so.

Closing the small gap in the curtains, the black haired boy put his head back on his soft pillow and after a few moments sleep engulfed his conscious, making him dream about a very tall and very isolated tower, where a black dog kept barking on and on, only ceasing, when his mouth became raw.

He woke up, his mouth feeling weirdly dry. What was he dreaming about? He couldn’t remember a thing. Just a weird feeling in his chest made him think it hadn’t been very pleasant.

Sirius rubbed his eyes and got up. First thing was bathroom duties. He brushed his teeth and then got dressed in his school robes.

The door to the dorm room opened with a bang.

“Oops… didn’t mean that,” James said and ran a hand through his already messy hair.

Sirius grinned, “Alright, Potter?”

James shrugged in an answer, “Yeah, guess so.” He stood in the doorway of their shared dorm room still, then looked at his shoes and back at Sirius. “You okay?”

They were now roommates, maybe even friends, as far as Sirius knew, what a friend was. He had never really had any. Maybe except for Regulus, if he counted as a friend.

“Fine. Don’t wanna meet my cousins though. They will be a pain in the ass from now on.”

“Mm… can’t say I relate, but I won’t let them hex you just yet!” Sirius laughed at that and they both made their way downstairs.

In The Great Hall a few students were still eating breakfast. The two boys sat down on the bench to join Peter and Remus, who were just finishing their meal.

“Good mornin’,” Sirius cheered, placing a toast on his plate.

Peter squeaked and mumbled something that sounded like _needgolibrarybye_ and was out of The Hall in a matter of seconds.

“Why would he need the library? Classes won’t start ‘til Monday, right?”

“Dunno, Black, it seemed urgent enough,” James grabbed a big bowl of cereal and poured some in the little white bowl that sat on the table before him.

Remus made a face, “If you don’t know how to read, doesn’t mean others- “

“Hey!” Sirius gasped. “I CAN read! I just don’t see why he would go there first thing in the morning AND when there are no classes for the next four days!”

At that moment something swept past him and all the boys looked up. An owl was hovering in the air not far from their table. The bird reached their heads and a small yellowy envelope dropped in the perfect spot not to have fallen into the massive bowl of porridge. With neat dark blue ink on the side that was facing upwards the name “Sirius Orion Black” was written.

Sirius felt his hands tingle with nervousness. James looked up and his eyes were full of sympathy. Remus too looked a bit worried.

“You don’t have to open it now,” James said hurriedly, when Sirius was already reaching for the letter.

He sighed and opened it anyway.

Sirius felt his cheeks grow hot. There it was. Dark ink on paper. Tears threatened to spill out of his eyes, but he swallowed and rubbed his face to stop them. Sirius hoped that no one noticed how anxious he felt.

He didn’t look up right away after finishing it. Moments passed, finally he glanced at James and was thankful that the other boy had been mannerly enough not to stare at him. He cleared his throat, “So that’s that. Let’s go then,” and he got up from the table, leaving his toast sitting on the plate unfinished.

* * *

“That’s not a good idea, Black,” Remus whispered, when Sirius made them all follow him out of the common room that evening.

“Where are we going?” Peter asked worriedly, “I don’t want to get detention on the first day!”

“You could have stayed in the room!” Sirius didn’t mind them whining, although the talk about detentions got under his skin a bit. So what if they got in trouble? There weren’t many things he could do that would make him look bad. He was Sirius fucking Black. A detention was nothing compared to being called “not worthy”. It still stung, when his thoughts went back to the letter, but that’s why he wanted to something. To do anything.

“Don’t worry, Peter,” James consoled. “I have a thing with me that will make sure we don’t get caught.” He smiled mysteriously then and took out a greyish bundle out of his bag.

“A cloak won’t hide us from Filch,” Remus snorted.

“As if I don’t know that,” James returned. “This is no ordinary cloak, Lupin. Look!” He unfolded it and put it on his back, drawing it closed at the front.

Sirius blinked. James’ body was gone. Only his black haired head was hanging in mid-air.

“Woah… is that...?”

James smiled triumphantly, “My dad gave it to me before we left for the station yesterday. Can’t tell mum though, she wouldn’t be happy to know I got it here with me.”

Sirius grinned widely.

“So, where are we going then?” Remus repeated Peter’s question from earlier, when they were all under the big cloak.

“We could go to the kitchens,” Peter suggested, “I heard a Hufflepuff say they weren’t far from their common room.”

“Are you really hungry again?”

“I don’t mind,” Remus encouraged the idea. At dinner Sirius had noticed that he ate a lot, but he was still very skinny and small, almost the same height as Sirius, maybe a few centimetres taller. Sirius was sure he would eventually outgrow him, maybe he needed to eat a bit more for it to come true, for him to be taller than all the other boys.

“I was thinking of something else, but the kitchens ‘ll be fine for our first mission!”

To be honest, Sirius hadn’t thought about what he wanted to do. He was a bit confused ever since that morning. He hadn’t cried, he didn’t want to feel weak. His mother always said he was exactly that. Weak, because boys didn’t cry. They weren’t supposed to, that’s what she always said. He had thought that maybe it would be better if he was born a girl, but then again, he didn’t want to be a girl. He didn’t want to wear dresses, although long hair was nice, he himself had locks that reached the shoulders.

On the way down, near The Entrance Hall, the boys stopped, because they had all heard a weird noise. Something that resembled a splash in water. Sirius looked at James, and the latter whispered really quietly, “I bet that’s Filch’s cat, remember? The one that sat beside him near the door, when we were eating.”

Peter looked like he was more than ready to rapidly fly back to the Gryffindor tower. James caught him by the sleeve, because he too had noticed that about the smallest boy of the group, “It can’t see us!”

Instead of going back like Peter wanted, they moved in the direction the weird sound had come from.

The boys turned a corner. Before them was the boys’ restroom, but, when James pushed the door open through the invisibility cloak, a weird scene appeared before their eyes. A ghost. No, it seemed too solid to be a ghost. Poltergeist, Sirius guessed, had opened all the taps of the many sinks that lined the bathroom walls and was throwing different items onto the wet floor.

The poltergeist stopped, noticing that the door opened and smiled wickedly, “Hah, what do we have here, mm? A door that opens itself wide. Must be nosy first years, I bet!” He flew closer to the boys, that were still standing just outside the door. The poltergeist looked to one side and then the other and shrugged, “Wanted a little company, but if you’re too scared of an old thing like me, go on, run away!”

Sirius mimicked its wicked smile and pushed the cloak back so he became visible again. Remus wanted to stop him, and go on to continue their walk to get some pumpkin pasties from the house elves in the kitchen, but slipped as the water on the floor was now flowing out in the corridor. He grabbed Peter’s shoulder to stabilize himself, but the smaller boy didn’t expect it and fell to the ground with Remus.

James groaned, “Idiots.”

The poltergeist laughed at them and flew so that water from the floor splashed on the two boys that were now getting themselves up. Some droplets met Sirius’ face too, but James didn’t get wet at all as he was the furthest from the attack.

“Peeves!” James shrieked, as Peter and Remus stood up now drenched to the bone both from slipping and the creature’s bad approach to “wanting company”.

The poltergeist – Peeves – laughed, stuck out his tongue and flew through the wall away from them.

“A brilliant mission, I must say,” Remus said sarcastically and shook his head like a wet dog.

“I don’t know a charm for making you lot dry,” James sounded apologetic, but Sirius just laughed.

Back at the dorm room, Peter was shaking, so Remus let him go to their shared bathroom first, although Sirius could tell that he was cold as well.

“Just put on something warm,” James suggested. “And get out of those wet robes right now, we don’t want you to get sick because of that stupid ghost.”

“Poltergeist,” Remus corrected, but obliged, starting to take off his robes and then his sweater. “What are you, a poof? Stop looking at me,” he said this to Sirius, who unintentionally had been staring at Remus.

“Oh, piss off,” he said in a playful tone. He hadn’t meant to stare, but when Remus had pulled up his sweater, there were scars on his lower stomach. Silver lines going from his bellybutton into the band of his trousers. It was weird, but Sirius decided not to comment. It wasn’t his place to say anything, because if someone asked him about something personal, he wasn’t sure, he would be glad to answer.


End file.
